Nedd gaped wider, if that were possible. “But without the artillery to clear the way before us—”
“—we will not break free of the encircling forces. Quite correct. And exactly what they planned, I’m sure.” He turned to Lord Mellis. “Orders, my lord?”
Mellis surprised Harrod—first by shaking his head, and then, actually smiling at him. “No, Intendant: I will be giving the orders here myself. You will be taking the jet-pack and making a report to my great uncle, the Overlord—if you get through the anti-aircraft fire.”
“But lord, the jet-pack is reserved for your use onl—”
“I dictate its use, and this is the use I decree.” He let his voice slip lower, buried to all ears but Harrod’s under the idling hum of the armored car’s engine. “Intendant, this battle is over. I will draw the van and left flank together and we will attempt to press forward, but House Verone’s helots are as thick as mites on a molting fen-cur. Without artillery, we will need luck and the favor of the Death Fathers to fight through all their rocket teams. And I suspect there’s huscarl armor behind them, probably with air support for the final blow. Do you agree?”
Harrod could only nod, speechless in the face of the Lord’s calm diagnosis of their terminal military condition.
“So you shall be our courier and analyst both: you are our best mind, and have intimate familiarity with the details of this campaign—better than I. Besides, you are our House’s leading technical historian, are you not?”
“Lord, with respect, it is not my place to claim such—”
“You are. You know it. So does the whole House. Which will soon need you to ready the Ark, unless I am much mistaken.”
Ready the Ark? Had it come to that?
Pathan had not paused. “So you must go. And I must stay. This I decree, Harrod hur-Mellis.”
Harrod did not question his lord; to do so could still earn him death, and even if it did not, would be a pointless waste of time. The jet-pack was man-handled out of the passenger bay of the less-battered APC, was perfunctorily tested, and was propped up for him.
As Harrod backed into the unit, he felt the shoulder and waist braces lock into place, and the jets shudder and heat with the pre-burn. He stared at Lord Mellis, and wanted to say something—anything—but did not have any words, not even an idea where to begin.
Pathan smiled at him again. “Yes, Intendant, some of us Evolved are actually willing to die in service to our own Houses—not just send lesser beings to their ignominious dooms.” He gave a signal to the flight techs. “We Evolved are born to dominate. But sometimes, to dominate requires a readiness to die.” Pathan’s smile became rueful. “Perhaps you believed otherwise, Harrod?”
As the jet-pack’s thrusters bloomed, and the lager of battered vehicles dropped away beneath him, Harrod had to admit: yes, lord, I did believe otherwise.
But not anymore.
— 2 —
On the HouseMoot side, the room was furnished with opulent hangings, sybaritically luxurious chairs, comely helot servants, refreshments, creature comforts and conveniences of every kind. Opposed were the furnishings of their own side: hard, simple chairs and a bare floor. The humiliation was complete—as was ever the case when a House went to war and lost utterly, rather than reaching a negotiated settlement. Overlord Bikrut Mellis—who sat beside Harrod now—had suffered just such a defeat.Seated directly across from them was Overlord Verone, an Elder of the HouseMoot, flanked by his victorious generals. Verone’s presence was a bad sign: Elders were notoriously (and rightly) preoccupied with the risk of assassination, and were rarely present in a situation where a defeated foe might, conceivably, attempt a suicidal act of retribution.
That Verone was here at all signified two things. Firstly, he had little, if any, fear of House Mellis attempting such an act. Secondly, he was too bent upon overseeing the House’s dissolution to pay heed to whatever trepidations he might have had. This predator wanted to play with his prostrate and bloodied prey before tearing its throat out in ferocious exultation.
Beside Harrod, Overlord Mellis’s voice was calm, but overly precise in elocution. “Let us conclude this.”
“In good time,” Verone said with a nod and a smile. “We have not yet addressed all the issues.”
“How can we, when you refuse to accept our ritual submission?”
“Eradicating the genetic moiety of your House by marrying it off into others is deemed unacceptable by the HouseMoot’s senior Line Mistresses. They have assessed the genetics of your Lines and consider such an alternative to be—unwise.” Verone’s smile grew.
It was a smile that meant his excuse was just so much cur-shit. None of the Houses that had taken the Moot’s part in the late conflict had ever expressed a single reservation regarding the viability—even the extreme desirability—of House Mellis’s Evolved breed Lines. No, this was simply the latest slash in the House’s now-fated death of a thousand cuts. House Mellis was not to be defeated, or even dissolved as an entity: it was to be extirpated, root, branch, and seed. Partly as an act of vengeance, partly as an example to others who would defy the decisions of the HouseMoot, and partly because of an atavistic belief that any House that had been so completely defeated must somehow be flawed at its core, in the very germ of its genetic essence.
House Mellis’s aged Overlord, Bikrut—264 standard years was impressive, even for an undilute Evolved—showed neither impatience, nor anxiety. “So if there is to be no ritual dissolution, what do you propose?”
“I do not propose: I decree. And upon your House, I lay the decree of Exile. You are to remove your Lines from this world and this system. Any that remain behind shall be expunged.”
Bikrut swallowed. “You cannot be serious.”
“But I am, Overlord Mellis.”
“You said we were meeting here for negotiations, not imposition of the Rite of Exile. Had I known—”
“You would have acted no differently. Your House is crippled; you have no choices left. Or perhaps you would prefer that we simply continue the war to its inevitable conclusion, Overlord Mellis. After all, wholesale extermination of a House is not without precedent—”
“Enough.” Bikrut’s interruption came out as a bark. “We are defeated, but we are not without the means to compel your respect. Even now.”
Verone’s smile only dimmed a bit. “Ah. Your nuclear arsenal. Hardly large enough to destroy more of us than of you.”
“So you think.”
“So I know. But the gambit is well-played, Overlord Mellis.”
“The confidence you place in your intelligence is ill-advised, Overlord Verone.”
“Is it? I know just how much rare earth has been mined over the past three and a half centuries. And I know where every gram of it has gone—and resides. So what could you possibly have that I do not know about?”
“Fissionables that did not come from the rocks of this world, but were already in our possession when we arrived here.”
Verone’s smile faltered. “There is no record in our Exodate’s landing manifest of—”
“And who was in charge of the ship that brought us to this wasteland three and a half centuries ago, Overlord Verone? Which House was most expert in spacefaring when we were all exiled to this world? Who, therefore, kept the real manifests?”
Verone’s smile had vanished; the generals flanking him no longer looked amused.
“Shall I provide the answer you already know? Intendant—” Bikrut spoke sideways, without so much as glancing at Harrod—“who built and crewed the Ark that brought us here?”